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Fractions, a la Shmoop. Have you ever run into the prickly situation

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of having four people... and only one pizza? Or tried baking a cake that didn't turn out

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so well because you put exactly one cup of everything into it?

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It certainly would be wonderful if everything came out to a nice, even number, but our world

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doesn't work that way. To communicate and make sense of all those

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bits and pieces in between, we rely on -- "fractions". For example, if you just broke up with your

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boyfriend, you are now half of one couple. It's okay though - he was a half-wit anyway.

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Let's start by breaking down one of these suckers.

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At least give it a half-hearted attempt. Up top you've got your numerator.

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And downstairs is the denominator. The denominator tells us how many total pieces

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make up the whole... While the numerator says how many of those

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pieces we're talking about. So if your mother tells you that you can have

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one-half of a pizza...

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...she is saying that you can have ONE of the TWO pieces left over.

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She also seems to care very little about your nutritional health.

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You couldn't at least start with a salad?

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Anyways, a fraction may also appear in the form of a Mixed Number, which is a combination

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of a whole number and a fraction.

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It's like getting a "two"-fer. For example, if you're baking Shmooperdoodle

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cookies, you'll see clearly that it asks for two-and-three-fourths cups of chocolate chips.

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Yeah, we love chocolate that much.

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It's the same as eleven-fourths, but there's probably not a level for that on your measuring

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cup. Anytime we get a fraction where the numerator

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is larger than the denominator... ...we call them "improper fractions."

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Just don't invite these improper guys to a fancy dinner party.

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Fractions help us better communicate what we want, because they give us a larger math

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vocabulary. Without them, every football game would be

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only one "game" long... ...it would be impossible to fairly divide

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food... ...and Fellini's classic film "8 ½" would

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simply be called "8." In short, life would be more difficult...

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and we would only be having a fraction of the fun.

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